The Medic: A World War II Story of Imprisonment, Hope, and Survival
Henry Chamberlain was one of the longest-term prisoners of war in World War II. Taken prisoner in the American surrender at Bataan in April 1942, he remained in Japanese captivity until September 1945. During three and a half years of imprisonment, as a medic he was a unique and unfortunate witness to the horrors and terrors the Japanese inflicted on their prisoners during the Bataan Death March and at the notorious Cabanatuan prison camp, where for two years he tended to the sick and wounded, all too often without medicine. In October 1944 the Japanese put Chamberlain on a “hell ship” to forced labor in sugar cane fields in Formosa (now Taiwan) and again, in January 1945, to a Mitsubishi lead and zinc mine in Japan. U.S. military forces reached the camp in September 1945, liberating Chamberlain and his fellow soldiers.

Chamberlain’s is a story of excruciating hardship, abiding endurance, and transcendent courage, and writer Claire Swedberg tells it beautifully, with great style and deep pathos, from Chamberlain’s fraught Depression-era boyhood in Nebraska, through his World War II captivity, to his return to Japan in 2018. Like Adam Makos’s Spearhead and Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, this is the account of one man fighting for and with his fellow soldiers against the forces of war in the twentieth-century.
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The Medic: A World War II Story of Imprisonment, Hope, and Survival
Henry Chamberlain was one of the longest-term prisoners of war in World War II. Taken prisoner in the American surrender at Bataan in April 1942, he remained in Japanese captivity until September 1945. During three and a half years of imprisonment, as a medic he was a unique and unfortunate witness to the horrors and terrors the Japanese inflicted on their prisoners during the Bataan Death March and at the notorious Cabanatuan prison camp, where for two years he tended to the sick and wounded, all too often without medicine. In October 1944 the Japanese put Chamberlain on a “hell ship” to forced labor in sugar cane fields in Formosa (now Taiwan) and again, in January 1945, to a Mitsubishi lead and zinc mine in Japan. U.S. military forces reached the camp in September 1945, liberating Chamberlain and his fellow soldiers.

Chamberlain’s is a story of excruciating hardship, abiding endurance, and transcendent courage, and writer Claire Swedberg tells it beautifully, with great style and deep pathos, from Chamberlain’s fraught Depression-era boyhood in Nebraska, through his World War II captivity, to his return to Japan in 2018. Like Adam Makos’s Spearhead and Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, this is the account of one man fighting for and with his fellow soldiers against the forces of war in the twentieth-century.
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The Medic: A World War II Story of Imprisonment, Hope, and Survival

The Medic: A World War II Story of Imprisonment, Hope, and Survival

by Claire E. Swedberg
The Medic: A World War II Story of Imprisonment, Hope, and Survival

The Medic: A World War II Story of Imprisonment, Hope, and Survival

by Claire E. Swedberg

Hardcover

$29.95 
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Overview

Henry Chamberlain was one of the longest-term prisoners of war in World War II. Taken prisoner in the American surrender at Bataan in April 1942, he remained in Japanese captivity until September 1945. During three and a half years of imprisonment, as a medic he was a unique and unfortunate witness to the horrors and terrors the Japanese inflicted on their prisoners during the Bataan Death March and at the notorious Cabanatuan prison camp, where for two years he tended to the sick and wounded, all too often without medicine. In October 1944 the Japanese put Chamberlain on a “hell ship” to forced labor in sugar cane fields in Formosa (now Taiwan) and again, in January 1945, to a Mitsubishi lead and zinc mine in Japan. U.S. military forces reached the camp in September 1945, liberating Chamberlain and his fellow soldiers.

Chamberlain’s is a story of excruciating hardship, abiding endurance, and transcendent courage, and writer Claire Swedberg tells it beautifully, with great style and deep pathos, from Chamberlain’s fraught Depression-era boyhood in Nebraska, through his World War II captivity, to his return to Japan in 2018. Like Adam Makos’s Spearhead and Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, this is the account of one man fighting for and with his fellow soldiers against the forces of war in the twentieth-century.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780811739955
Publisher: Globe Pequot Publishing
Publication date: 06/01/2021
Pages: 272
Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Claire E. Swedberg is an historical nonfiction author, journalist, and writing instructor. Her books include Work Commando 311/I: American Paratroopers Become Forced Laborers for the Nazis, In Enemy Hands: Personal Accounts of Those Taken Prisoner in WWII, Three Years with the 92nd Illinois: The Civil War Diary of John M. King, and In the Valley of Mystic Light. She lives with her family north of Seattle, Washington, where she is at work on her next book.

Table of Contents

Author's Note vii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xi

Part I Combat Medicine

1 Monday, December 8, 1941 3

2 1940 7

3 October 1941 11

4 December 1941 13

5 December 13, 1941 17

6 Christmas 1941 21

7 January 1942 29

8 Late January 1942 35

Part II Captivity

9 April 1942 49

10 May 1942 59

11 May 30, 1942 71

12 June 2, 1942 79

13 July 1942 99

14 January 1943 119

15 1943 129

16 1944 135

Part III Hell Ships

17 Fall 1944 145

18 October 1944 151

19 November 1944 163

20 Late 1944 169

Part IV Mining in Japan

21 January 1945 175

22 Spring 1945 183

23 March 1945 193

24 April 1945 197

25 Summer 1945 201

26 August 1945 205

27 September 1945 211

28 Fall 1945 215

Notes 221

Bibliography 225

Index 227

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